cli-tarHow do I create a tarball using the command line?

Creating a tarball using the command line is a simple task. To do this, you will need to use the tar command. The basic syntax for creating a tarball is as follows:

tar -cvf <tarball_name>.tar <files_to_archive>

The parts of this command are as follows:

• tar: the command itself
• -c: create a new tarball
• -v: verbosely show the progress of the tarball creation
• -f: the name of the tarball to be created
• <tarball_name>.tar: the name of the tarball to be created
• <files_to_archive>: the files and/or directories to be archived

For example, if you wanted to create a tarball called my_archive.tar containing the files file1.txt and file2.txt, you would run the following command:

tar -cvf my_archive.tar file1.txt file2.txt

This would create a tarball called my_archive.tar containing the two files.

Helpful links

• tar command man page
• Linux tar command tutorial

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